5/29/10

This is the shrug pinned out, right side down. I pinned just inside the garter stitch border because I wanted the lace stretched, but not the border. I steamed inside the pinned part, avoiding the border.

This is the shrug after it's been steamed, dried, and unpinned.

Please note the fabric still has body and fluff. It is not 'killed'. Killed acrylic is flat with no elasticity in it. Very limp and drapey too. Gentle steaming does not kill acrylic.

Next on the list-sewing the cuff seams. Then it will be done. YAY!

Waiting in the wings:

This is an unfinished vest that was donated to Knitwits. I am going to finish it, which requires some blocking, seaming, and knitting on the armhole and neckbands.

Fortunately, they donated the pattern and half a skein of leftover yarn with it. The yarn is Caron Dazzleaire (a discontinued yarn) in Heather Green. I plan to get this done before our next meeting on Wednesday.

I am about 4 inches into the leg of the first Monkey sock. It is such a fun knit. I had the pattern memorized after the first repeat was done. I'd forgotten how quick it works up too.

5/25/10

That's what I have. Worked on the lace shrug yesterday (outside, on the deck, being entertained by the hummingbirds). So glad I actually read the pattern after I got to 46 inches before starting the second cuff. Turns out I was remembering wrong. I'm supposed to knit the lace pattern for 45 inches-which when added to the first cuff equals 49 inches. So I have more than just 2 inches to go before I can start that second cuff. Maybe I can finish it today. I do have Rathdrum Knitalong this afternoon.

Though the days are full of sunshine, blue sky, and fluffy clouds this week, we are still having frigid nights. Got into the 20's last night. I've lost most of the lilac buds. A few managed to open but they have been stunted and are quite small.

I had to take Ruth to the post office yesterday to mail a package. There is a convenience store/gas station called Dashco that plants a block long row of Marigolds along the front of their property by the sidewalk every year. I was relieved to see I'm not the only one with dead Marigolds. Theirs are dead too.

Sweet Hubby rototilled the garden. I'm not planting anything more until the nights get above 32F. I've 'shelved' the corn and string bean seeds. Not enough time left to get anything from them. I can still get beets, carrots, and flowers though. I think I'll still give the Acorn squash a go too. If I can't plant before we leave on our vacation, I will be shelving all my seeds. That's the way it is here, though. Some years are good, some are not-for gardening.

5/24/10

Wow! It's Grosbeak central here at the Parkarosa Bird Buffet. The six Evening Grosbeaks are still hanging around. They have almost completely emptied both feeders already, and I am out of feed. I will have to go get some more.

They have inspired another variety of Grosbeak to show up. This fellow is not camera shy in the least. He gladly posed for me.

I haven't seen a Black Headed Grosbeak in two years.

Just the one male so far. I expect to see the female eventually.

I made significant progress on the lace shrug over the weekend. Only 2 more inches to go and I'll be back to knitting cuff ribbing. Needless to say, I'm getting excited. Finally, I'm getting to the end of this project. 46 inches is a long way with sport weight yarn.

I also have cast on for a pair of Monkey Socks. My friend Judy has arthritis in her hands. She knits but it's hard for her to use the little needles. She also had a bead stash that she wished to get rid of. So, in exchange for her bead stash, I'm knitting her two pair of socks. She was kind enough to choose purple yarn for both pairs, which you'll see later this week. It's pretty stuff. She definitely wants Monkey socks. I get to choose whatever I want for the second pair.

We are still having frigid temps at night. I have 6 plants that I have not put in the ground yet because of this. I've been taking 'em out in the morning, and bringing them back in at evening. Last night I forgot. I jerked awake at 1:30 a.m. suddenly remembering them. I immediately went outside to get them. The thermometer said 26F degrees. WTF! Fortunately, the plants survived, though they did get singed a bit.

5/23/10

It took 2 days, but I finally have succeeded in getting pics of the Evening Grosbeaks that have been visiting the Parkarosa Bird Buffet. I had to stand absolutely still at the window for half an hour before they got brave enough to return. On Friday there was just two. Now there are six, 3 males and their mates.

The males are extremely shy. One male comes to the tree first.

It looks around, then cheeps to call the others. All the females descend on the feeders in a cloud of wings chirping loudly as only a group of girls can.

You can see how shy Mr. Grosbeak is. He hides behind the feeder as he eats.

The two other males follow a couple minutes later, hopping around the tree and standing guard, with the occasional snatching of a seed or two as they hop by the feeders.

Eventually I think they started to get used to seeing me in the window and got braver. After consuming a lot of seed (they are piggy little eaters) Mr. Grosbeak needed a drink of water.

5/21/10

As promised, here is a pic of the second Ndebele Wave bracelet I made earlier this week.

The difference between this one and the first one is I used size 15 silver lined crystal beads for the little triangle bits, and size 11 silver metallic beads for the outside edge.

I also beaded a toggle in tubular Ndebele.

I like this one way more than the first one I did. It looks much neater, and lies better on the arm.

I've also finished knitting the Nook case.

On Wednesday I unraveled the whole thing because I was not happy with it. It just didn't fit my needs in a case. I reknit it using the pattern I was going to use originally. I was kind of worried that after felting it wouldn't fit my Nook because, as you can see in the pic, it's not much different in size. Surely shrinking it is a bad thing? I felted it today and it's drying. It looks like it's going to fit just fine. I need to sew the button on too. Oh yes, and I got a silicone skin for my Nook, purple of course. I'm such a klutz I felt it needed the extra protection.

A new bird showed up at the Parkarosa Bird Buffet today, a male Evening Grosbeak. It is super duper camera shy. I've been trying to get it's pic for hours. It flies away as soon as I move even just a tiny bit. I'm hoping it will come back tomorrow and I'll try again with the camera.

Speaking of birds, right now I have a small turkey on the rotisserie slowly roasting for dinner. Yum!

Last night we had freezing temps and though I covered the tomatoes and everything on the deck, they still froze. The marigolds are all dead too. A couple things survived-purple Alyssum, dahlias, and the Cilantro. I am officially giving up on tomatoes for the year.

5/18/10

Even though I haven't blogged for a few days, I have been working on the blog. Obviously, it turned out to be a waste of time. Several months ago I got an invite from Paypal to test out their new Storefront Widget, which was (and still is) in beta. I started setting it up, then got distracted and forgot about it. Then this last week I remembered it and decided to finish the set up.

That's what I've been doing. Trying to set up that damn widget. I ended up deleting it because it has so many problems. Enough bugs to fill an ant hill. I sent tech support an email and found out they aren't supporting it, working on it, or have any plans to fix the bugs at this time. It's a sad shame too because it was a really cool little widget and a lot of people would want to use it if it were working properly.

So now I'm in a fix. I wanna do a little store linked to this here blog to sell some of the beaded jewelry I've made because, well, the drawer can only hold so much, and I can only wear so much. I have quite a few pieces I don't even wear. I just made them because it was an interesting project. I looked for other store front widgets but there is no such thing. If I wanna sell my jewelry it's gonna take some major programming work on my part. Fun fun (not). I will be weighing my options to figure out the best way to go about it over the next couple week.

In the meantime, I didn't get my Nook case done because I spent so much time on the widget-that-doesn't-work. I got it about half done. I got some more done on the shrug and the navy sweater, and I made another Ndebele Wave bracelet, which I'll take pics of and post later this week.

Oh, one more thing. I had the Ravelry Knitalong meeting today. The attendees wanted to make it a weekly meeting because twice a month is not satisfying enough. They're having that much fun! So we are now meeting every Tuesday, 1 to 3pm, at the Rathdrum Library. In some ways I'm thrilled. But in other ways I'm a little dismayed because I've been thinking about starting a beading group and I had toyed with meeting on the Tuesdays that Rathdrum KAL wasn't meeting on. I can't spend all my time shuttling from meeting to meeting all week. So now I don't know what to do. I still want a beading group in the worst way. I need to be around other beaders. Another item to put on my examination/weighing my options list.

In the meantime, here is a fantastic knitting video for your amusement.

I finished the back of the Navy Textured sweater. Upon measuring, I find it to be perfect in size. So maybe I got gauge on those 8's after all. (In which case, where did those size 8 needles go?). I have cast on and done a few rows of the front welt. But before I can move on past the welt there is another project I have started and wish to finish first.

The knitting part should be done in a day or two. My Nook is not a large item.

One of the buckets I got for Mothers Day is blooming.

I don't think I've ever seen Hyacinth in this color of purple. Absolutely gorgeous!

I love how the flowers start out bright green and turn purple as they open.

They smell so good too. Almost like carnations, but a tad more tropical.

On Thursday I decided to take a chance and plant the deck. All the marigolds and tomatoes are safely tucked in their new dirt. I was pretty nervous about the first night, hoping there'd be no frost. None was predicted, and as far as I could tell when I first got up the next morning, there hadn't been any. A couple hours later, though, I could tell one of the tomato pots got frosted just a bit. Enough to turn the upper leaves to mush. So last night I covered all the tomatoes, just to be on the safe side. They're looking good this morning. Nothing else I've planted seems to mind the slight dip into freezing.

Other than slightly frigid nights, the weather has been wonderful the last few days. Oh yes, almost forgot. My flowering plum is finally blooming. Yay!

5/13/10

I see this bracelet design all over the internet. I decided to make one myself. I did it without a pattern, just looking at the various pics around web world. I probably have the pattern somewhere but didn't feel the need to dig it out.

Ndebele Waves

Click on pic to enlarge

I used size 11 seed beads in white and silver-lined crystal, and various colors of 4mm Czech Firepolish Crystals.

Click on pic to enlarge

The clasp is sterling silver. I have interesting plans for this bracelet that I will be announcing in the not to distant future. So stay tuned.

5/11/10

Yesterday, in preparation for the much anticipated road trip we're taking next month, I took the boys to see the doc for checkups and shots. Tommy is fine, as usual. He's gained a pound, but I expected that during the winter. He'll start losing that pound now that he's running around outside and getting exercise.

The results of Morgans exam surprised me. He is doing better now than he was last fall. Heart's good, lungs good, teeth are even good. He's still blind, and he's got some 'old dog' things going on (new moles, a couple of those small fat tumors he's had before), but other than that, he's gold. I am so happy to hear it. He had such bad days during the winter I really wasn't expecting this nice surprise.

Morgan poses for the camera. I couldn't get him to look up at me. I kept making funny sounds to get him to look up. Wasn't until this morning that I remembered he's deaf and can't hear me.(Clearly, I haven't adjusted to that as well as he has.)

The doctor did take another look at the cyst under his chin. We've talked about having surgery to drain it several times now. She asked if she could try pulling the liquid out with a needle, draining it that way first. I said yes. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The stuff is very very thick, and there's apparently plenty of scar tissue in the way too. (Interesting) We have decided no surgery. It's not hurting him in any way, just ugly. The risk of surgery at his age doesn't make it worth it. So, she gave him his shots and we went home.

Chenille gave him a hug swipe in sympathy for having to go see the mean doctor and get shots.

Tommy was not interested in cameras. He was too busy running in and out the doggy door to track grass into the house.

He managed to track quite a bit in. I guess all that practice makes perfect.

There is a webcam that we have found that is absolutely fascinating. A pair of Bald Eagles have a baby in the nest. I actually got to watch mamma feed baby his breakfast this morning. Be careful, it can be addicting.

I was going to knit out on the deck after we got home but the city of Rathdrum decided to burn garbage in their dump, which is fairly close to us, and the wind blew all the really nasty smelling smoke toward us. I hate the smell of burning plastic. Yuck! Couldn't even have the windows open and enjoy the scent of the blooming flowering plum out front. I'm hoping for better luck today. The sun is shining. A step in the right direction.

5/10/10

Mothers Day was great! The family spoiled me rotten. Sweet Hubby cooked me breakfast. Then I got presents, a box of chocolates and this (SQUEE!!!!):

The Nook. It is awesome! So easy to use. As soon as it was charged up I downloaded a Star Trek novel. It only took a few minutes and then I was reading it. I love that I can enlarge the font size so it's easier for me to see.

Besides starting a new book, I also played with my Nook. One of the things I did was download the PDF knitting pattern I'm using for the Navy Textured sweater from my laptop to my Nook (which I've named Lilly). I was successful.

Too cool! Here is the front page of the pattern. The pics are greyscale. (Color screen is probably in the near future, but I didn't want to wait.)

In the evening I was taken to a movie-Ironman 2, which I enjoyed immensely, and then dinner at the Outback Steakhouse for Prime Rib. Yum! I even got to have a Wallaby Darn (peach flavored cocktail of awesomeness).

Sarah and Frank sent me flowers, which arrived Friday. 3 adorable little buckets of bulbs, and a box of chocolates.

The plants are growing like crazy. I'm looking forward to seeing them bloom.

I got a bit of beading done yesterday too. I started a bracelet in ndebele stitch.

I don't have a pattern, but there are several pictures of this particular bracelet all over the internet, so I'm winging it. It's a fun one to work on.

Today I am taking the boys to the vet for shots. I'm going to see how Morgan is doing too.

The sun is shining and the sky is blue. I think I'm gonna go bake in the sun for a bit. Have a good day!